Proposal SPL Trades (within reason)

[Finchinator]

Approved by me, begrudgingly acknowledged by UT

SPL used to have trades! They were discontinued due to what I will sum up as a skill issue among managers. I propose that we reintroduce trades within reason.

The gist of the proposal is that we can have SPL trades (for players on the roster) post-auction and pre-midseason (week 4 or 5)!

This does not permit retain trades, which have been controversial and I feel would need greater clearance before the ongoing retain period, or mid-auction trades. This also can be inherited by SCL if this proposal garners support for SPL.

My thought is pretty simple — trades like “oh I am short a GSC player and they have depth, but they are short an SS player and we have depth” type of swaps during the first half of the season. Obviously larger scale trades can happen, too, but that depends on team circumstances and manager strategy.

People can feel free to argue logistics and complications as this is just a surface level proposal. I am also just one person, arguing on behalf of my own intrigue rather than the collective TD interest, which I am unsure of right now. I feel the added level of depth and strategy comes as a positive and could only be spoiled by people acting in bad judgement or bad faith.

This gives managers more power to strategize and control the outcomes of their teams for better or worse. Trades were previously killed largely due to being a skill issue (lopsided deals due to misjudging assets or dead-end teams trying to find better places for stars), but I think giving managers another try would add another layer of excitement to our biggest team tournament. In addition, managers who act in bad faith can always be barred from managing in the future + hosts should have some semblance of “common sense” veto power (hopefully this isn’t needed).

Hope we can have good discussion and continue to improve our best tournament!

 

[UT]

Approved by me, begrudgingly acknowledged by UT

Just to clarify on this part.

I like the idea of trades, and think they have the potential to make the tour better, but think they need guardrails to maintain competitive integrity, and effective guardrails that don't completely stiffle them takes some nuance.

My personal views are any trades that involve future assets are just unviable. There's no real disincentive to trading away future auction money or whatever to win now if you don't plan to manage next year, so we can't really balance those.

I think week zero trades (between draft and start of week one) are the easiest to balance. Teams can patch up weaknesses with surpluses, and we don't have to deal with "star player wants off a struggling team" scenarios.

Allowing trades up to mid season get dicy; if we have a team out of contention looking to offload players, what do they actually care about? How do we make a trade that is fair? Who gets to veto it and with what paramaters? These are the questions I think need a lot of care to answer.

I would like to see trades as an option in some capacity, and think that week zero trades are the easiest place to start with medium reward / lower risk than other areas. But I am very open to hearing ideas for balancing up to mid-season trades and what the community sentiment is on those / other ideas.

 

[Excal]

Going to shamelessly plug this thread I made on trades years ago that went into purgatory and never got a response, which, with permission, I'm reposting here as I still think it's a good proposal to fix the issue trades had.

From 2022:

While I don't disagree with the rationale behind abolishing trades last year, I always felt the decision was extreme. To me there were two big issues with trades before they were axed:

1. The hosts had to make subjective decisions vetting trades without a criteria
2. Trades had no restrictions on price nor # of players that could be included in one trade

My proposal is to allow all trades with the following restrictions:

1. A trade can only include one player
2. A player included in a trade's price cannot exceed four digits (<10k)
3. The players/items included in a trade cannot have a price differential of more than 3k

If you're spending 10k or more on a player, it means they're an integral part of your draft plan. You should not be able to trade expensive players once you've drafted them, and if it doesn't work out then that's on you. You shouldn't be able to trade retains either, which is why I like the <10k limit. Trades including > 1 player often end up unfavorable for one side. The price differential restriction prevents unbalanced trades.

So what's the gain for allowing trades in the first place if you have to place these restrictions on them? You allow low-scale trades around midseason. These have often been hugely positive for all parties involved. This is an example from my experience. For most teams, not every pick works out. Things didn't work out between steelskitty and the bigs, so this small trade allowed steelskitty to join a team that they meshed better with and allowed us to pick a new player from the mids pool. I'm sure a lot of benefit with no cost can come from allowing trades under a strict criteria through which hosts do not have to make "subjective" vetoes.

 

[a fairy]

As me:
I don't really like trades, SPL3 drama or not, conceptually. I think that PR-week trades make the most sense if we're gonna have 'em at all, but I don't think it's all that beneficial given how many logical restrictions would need to be in place. Yay you get to offload the failed 3.5k upbid SS support that it turns out your DPP starter despises, I guess there's value there, but I really would be against trading folks you actually invested in. Okay, your 20k failed upbid is a player you can't easily slot, but I think trying to offload them to a team that would take them in exchange for "equal" value (an unobjective measure even if penned to objective stuff like cost) is a bad idea. If teams wanna trade around their support, I think it's a bad idea big picture wise, but if it's limited and restricted then I could see such a system reasonably existing and not being terrible.

 

[Triangles]

This is a great proposal, there wasn't anything wrong with trades to begin with, just a couple of bad actors ruining it for everyone else. Bring it back for sure, whether in this form or another.

 

[Texas Cloverleaf]

One thing to consider, one of the reasons trades ended up failing was the impact on players, there were a number of scenarios of players on winning teams being traded to teams out of the playoffs effectively quitting on the team.

From a structural standpoint it's not a concern to the design of the system, but it is a thing to be aware of with respect to optics and engagements if the end result increases cancering, tour bans, player manipulation to avoid trades, etc

 

[Expulso]

I don't see the appeal of trades and think their presence would make official tours significantly worse with very little benefit.

Trading after week 1 is dumb because bad teams (which reveal themselves very early) can sell off all their good players, and these good players will naturally want to get to a team that's more likely to win. The team quits even earlier, and it provides an opportunity for lopsided-ness and collusion like Ruiners that one spl. Nobody likes this.

You should only be able to get players onto your team through the draft, where everyone has an equal opportunity to do so and there are clear, enforceable rules. If two managers quickly realize they'd prefer each other's players, they could and should have just drafted accordingly. Sure, mistakes in draft do happen and you get real situations like that. However, i don't think it's worth opening pandora's box to give people a chance to correct their mistakes from draft. Players have to live with whatever team they end up on, and i think managers should also have to deal with the consequences of their draft. Making things work in a tough situation is an essential managerial skill.

I think that having behind-the-scenes shady boardroom deals is a shitty part of managing, and trades existing strongly encourages this.

I think trades also just empower players to be divas and try to force their way out of their current team. We have done a lot to eradicate this with the signup form and stricter price-fixing rules, I see no reason to backtrack on this for, what, a fun extra feature?

 

[Dj Breloominati♬]

You should only be able to get players onto your team through the draft, where everyone has an equal opportunity to do so and there are clear, enforceable rules. Making things work in a tough situation is an essential managerial skill.

I think that having behind-the-scenes shady boardroom deals is a shitty part of managing, and trades existing strongly encourages this.

I think trades also just empower players to be divas and try to force their way out of their current team. We have done a lot to eradicate this with the signup form and stricter price-fixing rules, I see no reason to backtrack on this for, what, a fun extra feature?

Pulso hits the nail on the head, strongly agree with it. With trades, you are very likely making the good teams better and the bad teams worse. It is hard to put a label on "within reason" in a game as subjective as ours (especially in a tour like this where the winning teams have historically had 'cheap' buys exceed expectations). Do not bring trades back. The potential pros are not worth the evident cons.

 

[Luigi]

Things that never happened when trades were allowed: 2 teams trade their dpp sub for the other team's gsc sub and team A patches up their dpp weakness :) while team B patches up their gsc weakness :D

Things that did happen when trades were allowed:
Players holding their manager hostage.
Ruiners being eliminated by week 4 and trying to trade Troller for Aliss

The price-control rules proposed by Excal can minimize the impact but never remove the fact that as long as a breach exists people will act in bad faith and abuse them.

In the last 5 years we've correctly noticed that there are people that will be dishonest and disienguous to lower their price and made 100 different rules to prevent people from price fixing themselves before the draft, but then after the draft we should open it up so they can hold their managers hostage? how is this a coherent direction to move the rules in?

This is a great proposal, there wasn't anything wrong with trades to begin with, just a couple of bad actors ruining it for everyone else. Bring it back for sure, whether in this form or another.

does 2026 smogon strike you as particularly light on bad actors?

 

[Laurel]

I wouldn't allow trades. I'd only consider it if it was after the draft but before Week 1 goes up.

Even then I'm not so sure. As Expulso mentioned, this just lets people cause issues if they don't like their team.

It would also create awkward situations with players asking to be traded to be with their friend(s), but the other team is only offering say a bench player in return for your 15K starter. Then will said player resent you for denying their trade?

My vote is to not fix what isn't broken.

 

[Dave]

Alternative proposal. The issue with trades will always be some hidden agenda or malice being implemented by one party..

What if we tried to beef up an area of SPL that COULD be exciting while giving opportunity to our player base?

The mid season auction.

Instead of trades, I think it would be cooler to give every single team 6k after week 1 for guaranteed auction credits.

This eliminates the scenario UT discusses, fixes any fringe cancering scenarios and brings a lot of mind games to the mid season auction.

You have the opportunity to go for one singular player, and blow all your cash or you have the opportunity to go for two players.

I considered the thought of 10K but thought that that might be a bit too much.

I think this would be far more exciting. I do understand the argument that bad drafters may be rewarded a second wind. But it also fixes a lot of unforeseen circumstances that have occurred in the past such as personal injury, IRL responsibilities leading to inactivity, bans, etc.

We've seen trades and we know what we're getting with those. Why not try something else out?

 

[RADU]

Alternative proposal. The issue with trades will always be some hidden agenda or malice being implemented by one party..

What if we tried to beef up an area of SPL that COULD be exciting while giving opportunity to our player base?

The mid season auction.

Instead of trades, I think it would be cooler to give every single team 6k after week 1 for guaranteed auction credits.

This eliminates the scenario UT discusses, fixes any fringe cancering scenarios and brings a lot of mind games to the mid season auction.

You have the opportunity to go for one singular player, and blow all your cash or you have the opportunity to go for two players.

I considered the thought of 10K but thought that that might be a bit too much.

I think this would be far more exciting. I do understand the argument that bad drafters may be rewarded a second wind. But it also fixes a lot of unforeseen circumstances that have occurred in the past such as personal injury, IRL responsibilities leading to inactivity, bans, etc.

We've seen trades and we know what we're getting with those. Why not try something else out?

Rejected Thread 'Future of the Midseason Auction'

Oct 10, 2024

Good morning folks, I feel like this conversation has been a long time coming, but the Midseason auction has been in a very awkward spot for many iterations of the tour now and it's worth discussing its future in tournaments to come.

0. Preamble
I've dug through many threads between the SPL subforum, IS and Tour Policy. Not everything is as easy to find and there's pages over pages of discussion that I couldn't sift through, so if you have more knowledge in regards to the history of mids and policy please contribute with what you know. I'll also be mostly focusing on SPL throughout this...

• RADU
• Replies: 9
• Forum: Tournament Policy Archive

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good 1 dave

 

[MrAldo]

Currently not feeling that bringing back trades as they are right now would be a good idea, right now people will just cherry pick where they want to go, and overall just a pain for the manager trying the handle the situation cause sadly, not all players have the best intentions at hand and boy... are there personalities,

And tbh, think the format of SPL is a little too small in terms of time in order for this to be like practical, like being 0-0-4 is dire but dont think that is mathematically out just yet, you would have to bust your ass but it is still numerically possible. A full on trade scenario would well if SPL was more like a league where at some point in the middle of N+1 weeks where full trades or selling players like MLB irl could happen. But the tournament calender is already filled to the brim and a way longer SPL just leads to exhaustion and people not carrying.

Hard to offer a solution by just bringing it back, too exploitable for the player and full of scenarios that lead to personal bias.

I do like dave proposition tho, doing something for midseason worth a buck think would be great for the tournament as a whole.